Personal Narrative: Rome And Beyond

Gerald M. Sande

Rome and Beyond During much of my four years in Rome I felt like a fish out of water. Of course I deeply appreciated the amazing opportunity that had been given me, and made every effort to take full advantage of it. The fish-out-of-water part centered essentially on the Gregorian University and their academic program focused almost exclusively on systematic theology. I grew up in a small town of about seven hundred people in eastern North Dakota (the Diocese of Fargo), and as a priest I expected to spend most of my life as a pastor there. In my view the small towns I knew had little use for professional theologians; they needed pastors, men who could help them look beyond the harsh winters on the prairie, the summer hail that destroyed their wheat crop, the economic forces that threatened to drive them from the land they loved. Any nuance in my preaching would relate to the finer points of Matthew and Mark, not Schliermacher and Lammenais. Aloisius J. Muench was rector of St. Francis Seminary in Milwaukee in 1935 when he was made bishop of Fargo, North Dakota. Ten years later, shortly after the end of World War II, Pope Pius XII appointed Muench his representative to Germany, a post which quickly evolved into the formal diplomatic role once held for many years by Pius himself. It was a good move; Muench

John’s University and Abbey in Minnesota had included some fine courses in Scripture, my first and very fascinating experience in academic study of this important area. Also, during the second quarter of the twentieth century, St. John’s had become a leader in what became known as the Liturgical Movement, an international effort to develop deeper understanding of the nature and history of Christian liturgy. At age twenty-two I was deeply, even emotionally, interested in both these areas of study, and fully expected that during my coming years in Rome I would develop some level of expertise in both